It's not the topics the raise the probkem, it's what you are saying about the topics, and what you are trying to achieve.

Genocide, rape, slavery, lynching - there are songs about all of those which would have the effect on encouraging people to oppose all those things, and that could apply just as much if they were written in a way that was looking through the eyes of the perpetrators. Irony provides us with a ranbge of powerful tool.

Where there is perhaps a problem is when it comes to songs which seem to line up on the other side, maybe presenting some act of violence, for example, as somehow justifiable or heroic. I'm thinking, for example, of some traditional ballads, which can be seen as glamorising rape and murder.

I don't think that would justify excluding them, since there's normally a moral ambiguity which means they need not be seen as doing that, but there is a problem. And I know that there are more recent songs, for example some maverick Country songs, and some Rap material which both in content and performance seem to explour and encourage hatred.

And behind all that there is the question whethwer it is possible to hacve a song which is aesthetically a good somg, but ethically repugnant. And I think that the answer there is probably "yes".

But, regardless of the aesthetics, I don't think I can see myself writing or singing or even listening to a song like that (not listening more than once anyway. Some things are more important than aesthetics.